Let Me Tell You A Story
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, days 988b-1001b: As they wait for their bus to be repaired, now it's New Directions' turn to tell stories... - Day 1000 special
1. To Grandmother's House

_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 47th cycle. Now cycle 48!_

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_**Cycle 48/Day 1000 special: **So, yes, in this cycle, a milestone I had to do something special for.  
In this cycle I'm passing my 1000th consecutive day of gleekathon! So for this, the cycle will feature:  
* 21-day/chapter story for the Sunshine Girls series (This Little Light of Mine)  
* 14-day/chapter story special for day 1000 (Let Me Tell You A Story)  
* One-shot installments from 12 series + 2 non-series  
* And for this cycle and this cycle alone (I swear), 7 'triple shift' days, with 3 chapters/stories going up in the day!_

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_**This is a triple shift day.** There will be two more uploads today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 1 and Sugar So Sweet._

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**"Let Me Tell You A Story"  
New Directions**

**1. To Grandmother's House**

_(A/N: Please read the info above the line! Thanks!)_

They were stuck. There had been an issue with their bus coming home, and so they had to wait. Rachel had been the one to take the initiative in looking for some way to kill time. And then it had hit her. She had gone around and gathered the rest of the club and she had gotten them to sit, in a misshapen circle.

"What are you going to do, tell us a story?" Santana had joked, and Rachel paused.

"Actually, yes," she admitted, and there was a handful of groans. "Wait, hold on, I'm not going to be the only one telling a story, we all will." Now they just stared at her. "We'll each go around and tell a story, try and mix it up, you know?"

"We're not exactly the Grimm brothers," Kurt told her, and there was a brief glimmer in her eye.

"Just use the people you know, all of us here… Make it up as you go." She looked at hesitant faces. "you have a better idea?" she dared.

"So you're going first?" Puck guessed with a sigh and she sat up.

"I am," she confirmed. "And my story is going to be something like a fairy tale, you know… Once upon a time, there were two sisters, walking through the woods. Rachel," she pointed to herself before searching, deciding, "And… Santana."

"Oh, hell…"

X

_Rachel's story_

Two sisters were walking through the woods, having lost the path to take them home. Frightened as they were, the girls went on walking, holding their sister's hand. The first was Santana and, though she was the eldest, she continually grasped on to fear, sometimes leading her into more trouble. The second sister's name was Rachel, and while she was also afraid, her sister's company gave her confidence that they would soon find the way home.

Suddenly, they heard a sound, and they stopped, coming nearer now to one another. "What was that?" Santana asked.

"I don't know," Rachel replied. "Hello? Is someone there?"

"Don't be afraid, girls," the deep voice startled them, and they turned as one, freezing when they saw the figure in the shadows.

"Who are you?" Santana asked, and the figure stepped in the light. "I know who you are. You're the beast everyone talks about."

"Such strong words," Beiste shook her head. "I came here because I saw you appeared to be lost. It so happens I have something here that might help you on your journey."

"What is it?" Santana asked. Beiste reached in the sleeve of her cloak and pulled out two thin chains. From each of them dangled a blue stone set in gold.

"It will render you impervious to harm. I can prove it." She placed one of the chains around her neck and it immediately gave off a glow. "Go on, throw something at me. Go on, go on," she insisted. After a moment, Santana crouched to pick up a rock and threw it. The thing bounced away, never disrupting Beiste. "See?" she told them. Santana was amazed, but Rachel still hesitated.

"If it's so powerful, why don't you wear it?"

"I am bigger than you are, more powerful. Such innocent young girls like you should not be travelling without protection."

"How much does it cost?" Santana asked.

"Cost? No, no, dear, this is a gift, from me to you two girls," she removed the chain from her neck and once again presented it with its twin.

"No, thank you," Rachel declared, much to her sister's surprise.

"What are you doing? We need protection, we're lost…" she shook her head. "I'll take it," she stepped up, and Beiste offered her one of the chains, which she put around her neck. Again it gave a glow, and as she wore it, Santana felt filled with such power. "Rachel, you have to take it."

"No, I won't. And you shouldn't either."

"Well what do you know? I'll tell you what. You go this way, and I'll go that way, and we'll see who gets home first," the girl stalked off into the woods.

"Santana, wait!" Rachel called after her. "What have you…" she turned back to yell at the woman, but she was gone. With nothing to do, Rachel took her path, continuing her search for home on her own.

It was after night fall that she saw light through the branches and arrived before their small home. Only when she went inside, their worried mother was alone, wondering why her eldest daughter was not with Rachel. Santana had yet to find her way home. Rachel knew the path was difficult, and she had walked it with much caution.

Accompanied by men from their village, she had returned through the woods, looking for her sister. She knew her sister, and with that stone around her neck, Rachel knew Santana would have felt powerful, invincible, and she might have made decisions too hastily, without really considering her choices.

By daybreak, they returned home empty handed. Santana was never seen or heard from again. Though sometimes as she would walk through the woods over the years, Rachel would swear she could see a flash of blue as deep as that stone laid in gold and dangling from a chain.

X

Rachel folded her hands in her lap, her story done. There was a brief silence. "So what are you saying?" Santana frowned.

"I wasn't saying anything," Rachel rolled her eyes. "I told you, I was just using you as like a template, you know?"

"Yeah, sure," Santana sat back.

"Okay," Rachel smiled. "Who would like to go next?" she asked.

"Me! Me, can I go next?" Sugar's hand shot in the air. "I have a story," she declared. "It's a tragic story of forbidden love…" she breathed.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	2. You and Me Let's Hide Away

_**This is a double shift day.** There will be one more upload today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 2._

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**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**2. You & Me Let's Hide Away**

After her announcement, the rest of them had just kept on looking at her, waiting for her to tell this story of forbidden love she said she had. For a while though Sugar just sat there, thinking.

"I guess… I might have something to…" Artie started to say, which finally got her to speak up.

"You wait your turn!" Sugar pointed at him, then smiled. "Besides, I've already cast you as the male lead," she pronounced, which got a few chuckles out of the rest, while Artie just blinked in surprise. "I just need a villain now," she explained.

"You can use me," Finn spoke then, surprising a few, while Sugar observed him, appraised.

"Sure, yes. You'll do nicely," she decided before sitting up straight. "Now just sit there, don't interrupt, and listen. I don't know what time it will take place in, but I think there weren't wheelchairs yet. We'll just pretend you can walk, okay?" she nodded to Artie, who gave an uncertain nod. "Right, here goes!"

X

_Sugar's story_

Their village was not a wealthy one. Never would a man here wed 'above his station.' Not one of them ever really had a way out, and his best chance for improvement went hand in hand with the one way girls had of getting out: betrothal. This was where our story began.

It was the word on everyone's lips when Mr. Motta up on the hill promised his only daughter to the Hudson boy across the lake. Sugar was as innocent as they came, and it was no wonder her hand would be worth the offer it received. Mr. Motta would have taken whatever he could, as much as he loved his daughter, but as it was the Hudson family was one of the wealthiest around. If he wed his Sugar to their Finn, they would be set for life.

She would go if it was expected of her. There wasn't anything standing in the way to keep her from going… not at first.

The day the news of the betrothal had hit the village, she had gone to sit along the lake, looking across. She wondered what her life would be there, what her future husband would look like… She didn't hear him come, so lost in her thoughts of the man she was to wed. But then she smiled to herself.

"You're hiding again," she called, and a few seconds later the boy sat at her side. She looked to him, still so quiet. Artie had grown up with her in the village. She remembered him, just a small boy, but he had grown, and so had she… and she could see the way he looked at her sometimes… "So you've heard."

"You don't have to do it," he told her.

"Why shouldn't I? I'll have no life here. And this way I can help my family. What else is there?" He didn't respond right away. "And… my future husband will take care of me, and maybe I can go…"

"You don't understand," he shook his head, and she frowned; he was never like this, she couldn't explain it. "He won't take care of you."

"Of course he will, he…" she maintained.

"No, you don't know him like I do. I deliver to his house all the time, I know what he's like. He's not a good person," he insisted. She looked like she didn't want to believe him. "You'll be miserable for the rest of your life if you go. You'll tell yourself that it's worth it at first, because you're helping your family, but it won't stay like that for long I swear."

"Stop, why are you telling me this? It's not true, my father wouldn't…" she moved to stand.

"Your father wouldn't know. Mr. Hudson is good at pretending, but I've seen him when he's not pretending. He wouldn't love you, Sugar, not like I…" He paused, and she looked back to him, still sitting there.

"Like you what?" she asked. It took a few seconds, but he stood and came to stand in front of her.

"Like I love you, like I've always loved you," he came right out with it, and she gasped.

"That long?" she asked, her voice trembling, and he smiled.

"Yes, that long." She looked to him, and she could see it, even more than before.

"But… why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't know how. But now I have to, because I can't let you go and marry that man, you deserve so much more than him," he took her hands. "We can leave here, find a better place." She looked into his eyes, breathless, thinking, wondering, supposing, fearing…

"I… I can't. I have to go through with it. I promised, they depend on me…"

That had been the end of it… for now. Within months, Mr. Motta would take her across the lake, and she would meet her future husband. They would be married less than a month later. In this time, she would see Artie from the window of her bedroom, when he came for his deliveries. She'd never let him see that she was there, but she never missed him, on the off chance she might gather up the courage to go to him.

His warnings had been right, absolutely and terribly right. Finn was not some gallant lord. He may have looked that way to guests and hosts alike, but his wife did not receive such treatment. Soon her days would come to be spent like a prisoner in her own home, as spacious as it was, compared to her own home. All of it wouldn't change the fact that staying here with this man was slowly killing her.

Every time she saw Artie she just wanted to run to him, tell him she changed her mind and she would run with him. Maybe it was because of her husband, but she did believe being here had made her realize maybe she had loved him 'that long,' too, she just didn't realize it. Now she was afraid of what would happen if her husband ever understood what was happening, even if nothing had really happened… yet.

Her chance came one day when her husband had gone away, and she had been left behind. Artie would come for his regular delivery, and she would tell him. She waited at the window until he came and then she hurried down. She bypassed the maid, said she would take care of it. She opened the door, and just seeing her there, it was like he knew. He carried the merchandise inside, as he would, but when it was just them…

"I'm sorry, I should have listened," she breathed.

"Don't. You did what you had to do."

"I don't want to be here anymore," she begged, and he looked at her.

"He's your husband now. He will come looking for us, do you understand?" She came up to him, holding his face in her hands.

"I understand," she promised, and he put his arms around her; it was the first time he'd ever gotten to. "It's you I love, not him," she went on, and… she'd missed his smile.

She had also not realized they were no longer alone. When she saw him from over Artie's shoulder, she gasped. "What's this?" Finn asked.

"I thought you were…" she panicked, while Artie stood in front of her.

"Get out of my house!" Finn came to grab Artie by the shirt and drag him away, but he was quick to fight back. Sugar stood back, powerless to stop them, but as the fight between the man she loved and her husband went on, growing more and more heated, she had no one place to stand. And as she did her best to dodge them, she had found herself thrown back, hitting her head with such a loud crack that the fight had come to a surprised halt.

She was dead before either of them could reach her. In that moment it was not her husband who wept for her, for the life and the love that had been lost. Artie would only ever have gotten to hold her in his arms twice, once with all the warmth of life, and once in the cold of death.

In sight of this, the young Hudson had seen an opportunity as only he would. He vowed then and there that the poor delivery boy would be accused of the deranged murder of his wife. He would spend the rest of his life rotting in jail, or worse. They would believe him of course; he was one of the richest men here. So Artie had only one option. He ran, spending the rest of his life instead hiding, mourning alone the lost love of his life.

X

The group sat in silence as she finished her story, which pleased the storyteller. "So that's that."

"Poor guy…" Tina gave a half smile to her ex, who looked awkward, after being cast in the role of the lover and hero.

"Okay, now you can tell your story," Sugar looked to him, and it took him a moment to recall that he'd had an idea before.

"Right, okay," he nodded.

"Who's in this one?" Sam asked.

"Actually, we all are," he revealed, scanning the faces as he made quick work to try and organize how he would do this.

"What's it about?" Brittany asked, and Rachel had to smile, seeing that despite themselves, they were all starting to get into it.

"Well… it's set in the future, near or distant, it's up to you. There's been a disaster, horrible, and all of us here… we are the last survivors."

"Time to repopulate, right?" Puck smirked, getting frowns from the girls.

"If you don't mind, I'll tell the story," Artie shook his head.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	3. Us Against the Void

_**This is a triple shift day.** There will be two more uploads today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 3 and Remember That Night When._

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**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**3. Us Against the Void**

He hadn't given it that complicated of a thought: it would go as they were seated, so he could split them in the groups he needed. He nodded to himself.

"Okay, so this is how it starts: There was a disaster and our group was frozen to be protected. There were other groups like this all over the world, but something went wrong with them. Our group was the only one to survive," he told them.

X

_Artie's story_

They could not know, going in, when they would awaken, after how many months, or more likely years. If all went according to plan, their pods would be triggered once the system's tests estimated it was safe for them.

Well one day it had happened. Little by little, they had begun to awaken. It would take time for their bodies to adjust, but still in that time they had been able to gather some information.

They had been kept under for eighty-seven years. It was a lot more than what they would have anticipated. Whatever had happened after they had entered those pods, it didn't matter: everyone they knew, save for the others in their group, was probably long dead. As much as they had been prepared for this, it was still a hard blow.

After that, news of the other groups' demise had reached them. There was no one left. Everyone was dead, and as far as they knew the entire Earth's population was now present in that room.

Teams had been sent out to inspect, observe, and report back. After a week they had concluded it was safe, and they had gone, finding a world so different from the one they had left.

With the next few weeks, they had begun to spread out more, settle…They had never been meant to be alone. They would have coordinated with other groups. Instead, it all fell upon them. And as this reality established itself, something else happened: division. Two factions formed, innocently enough at first, but then leaders emerged, and with them came something of a line in the sand: us or them.

On one side, there was the side following Quinn, and on the other side there were those following Kurt. It was all on instinct, more or less, or on the trust they had managed to put in them already. The thing that had come to divide them had been something they had not expected: there was a chance of another group, more survivors.

Quinn believed it could be a glitch but, if it wasn't, then they should go out to meet them; and maybe they wouldn't just double their numbers, they would discover other cells.

But Kurt, and those who sided with him, thought they shouldn't bother, that all they'd do would be to put themselves in danger for possibly nothing, and that they should keep a hold of their land and their resources.

This debate had lasted at 'civilized levels' for some time, but then one day the blips in their system that suggested the presence of another group were upgraded to a voice, a distress call to anyone who could hear them… and Kurt had prevented Quinn from responding.

"If you don't want to help, that's your choice, but you can't stop the rest of us from stepping in," she had faced him angrily. He wasn't disturbed.

"If you want to go, then go. But we won't let you back in once you and yours go. You forfeit the land," he declared. "If you stay, then you're part of us. But if you go then you're the enemy."

"There is no enemy here, except maybe you!" Tina had called from behind Quinn.

"We can't let them in, they'll take all we have!" Puck had replied from behind Kurt.

The argument would grow more heated, and all signs pointed to imminent violence. More than ever one's allegiances could make the difference between their survival and their demise.

But from that, something else had emerged: a third group, not so much lead by one person but existing in whispers. Some of them were declared for Quinn's side, others for Kurt's, but their opinions had diverged from their leader's into this third camp now, believing something very simple:

If they didn't get out soon, they would find themselves in the crossfire.

One night, two of them had met, one from each side, speaking for the ones who wanted to get out on both sides. Speaking for Kurt's and Quinn's sides respectively, Santana and Brittany had come face to face. It was hard at first, having spent weeks seeing them as 'the other side.'

"What are we doing?" Santana would ask.

"We have to go. Are you ready? Your people, are they ready?" Brittany asked.

"We can't talk like that anymore. We're not anyone's people. We are our own people." Brittany gave a silent nod of agreement. "Then we go at night fall. We take what we can, no looking back. Let them have their fight, tear each other apart. We won't be part of that." Brittany smiled at this.

"I'll follow that," she promised.

So at night fall, rising from their camps, less than twenty people set out, coming from two sides but merging at the middle. They would never know the fate of those they'd left behind, but it didn't matter. They were making their own fate.

X

After Artie had finished his story, the floor was left open as to who would decide to go next. For a moment Rachel wasn't sure, maybe her brilliant plan would fizz out after three stories. But then looking around, she could sort of see some of them quietly thinking, she hoped, of a story to tell.

"Okay, I'll go," suddenly it was Kurt who spoke, and Rachel smiled.

"Great. What's your story about?"

"A ship. A boat, and its passengers, marooned on a deserted island."

"Who's the hero?" Mercedes asked.

"I guess I am," Kurt shrugged.

"Am I there?" Blaine asked, and Kurt looked to him with a smile.

"Where else would you be?"

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	4. As Far As The Eye Can See

_**This is a double shift day.** There will be one more upload today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 4._

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**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**4. As Far As The Eye Can See**

Kurt had looked around the faces handy. He hadn't been sure if he'd even end up participating, but then the idea had come to him and he thought 'why not.' He wasn't completely sure the whole experiment wouldn't crash and burn or degenerate before long, so he might as well fit in his story first.

"Alright, other passengers shipwrecked… Mercedes, Tina… Finn… Santana, and… Puck," he decided and announced.

"Okay, wait, was Puck driving, because he's a crap driver," Santana pointed. Puck threw his hands out as though to protest.

"No, you are," Mercedes confirmed, with nods following from Quinn, and a few others. He frowned and sat back.

"It wasn't his fault," Kurt decided. "There was a storm, torrential rain and waves slinging the small vessel around like a toy… and then it crashed against a rock, everyone was thrown free, into the water… to drown, to live… who knew?"

X

_Kurt's story_

He broke the surface of the water with a gasp and a desperate gulp for air. The water was not calmed yet, and he was having to deal with waves and current carrying him, rain still blinding him, wind, thunder, lightning… chaos. He had no bearings, no idea if he was even near land of any kind, and then… a scream.

It gave him a shock, enough to get him to look around, and then he thought he saw something. With so much happening all around, he couldn't tell where the scream was coming from, so what he saw was all he had to go on. His limbs were already water logged and exhausted but he was spurred on by adrenaline and the need to survive, so he made himself swim, looking constantly to make sure he didn't lose sight of…

"Tina!" he screamed, recognizing her now. She wasn't hearing him, but he continued. He just barely caught her in time, keeping her from sinking. Now it was two of them bobbing in the water, and nowhere to go… Maybe they were better off sinking now…

He didn't remember much, only that at one point he opened his eyes and he found the sun, blue skies… He stared at it for some time, like his mind was not awake yet. But then he could feel sand sticking all over him and under him, and he began to look.

A beach… He was on sand, a long stretch, but ahead there was the water and behind him trees and foliage, and… and he was on land.

He pulled himself up, legs needing a couple tries before he could stand on them. He batted blindly at the sand on him to it would fall off, but he kept looking, and up the beach he saw them. A couple were starting to stir and rise as well. Puck, Mercedes… both worse for wear as he was, but alive. And then there were the three forms lying motionless in the sand.

He had dashed to Tina immediately, having to see she was alright, after he'd pulled her from the water. When he had her coughing and blinking, he looked to the others. They had done the same, and soon Santana and Finn were also awake.

They had all gathered after that, and they had done their best to piece together what had happened, where they were, but one thing was clear: they were shipwrecked, with no way to call for help. They would go searching for food, wood to build a fire, and people. The first two they would find, but of the third there were none that they could see. More than that, they couldn't discern any sort of man-made structures… The island was deserted.

Days began to pass. They built fires in hopes to be seen, but there was a slim chance of that. And so the talk among the group turned to building a raft, a boat, something to get them off the island and back home… All but one.

Once the trauma of the wreck had worn off, Kurt had begun to feel… at ease. Life here, he found, was so stripped of all the stresses which had once weighed heavy on his shoulders, and he also found that any mention of going home met his soul with discomfort. By the fifth day he knew… he didn't want to go back, so he wouldn't.

The others had declared him a fool, coward, insane… Once he had assured them he would still help them build the raft so they would go if that was what they wanted to do, that had stopped, and instead they would ask him to come along. But his mind was made up.

It took them a few more days to gather the materials and assemble the raft. The day the thing was ready to hit the water and the task turned to gathering food for the journey, it became clear they would be gone soon, and he would begin his life alone. He helped them sail off, watched the raft grow smaller and smaller until it was a dot, and then… he blinked and it was gone.

The day was a peaceful one, and he was at ease. The island had breathed life into him the way the city never could. He could be happy here… even alone. Only he wasn't.

He had heard a branch snap and he turned to see the figure emerge from the woods. The young man's hair was dark and fell over his head in curls. His clothes were tattered and worn, and he had no shoes. Kurt was surprised by his appearance, but he wasn't afraid; he approached him.

"Who are you?" the man asked.

"My name is Kurt. My ship wrecked and I found myself here," he explained. "Is that what happened to you, too?"

"A long time ago. But I'm the only one left, I thought I was alone. I saw you and your people, but I couldn't…" he bowed his head in shame. Kurt came nearer.

"What's your name?"

"Blaine," he introduced himself, looked around. "Your people?"

"They're gone. It's just me now… and you." Blaine looked back to him; he had missed companionship. "I guess we can be 'alone' together. That is if you would like that," Kurt offered. The boy looked at him and smiled, offering his hand.

"Let me show you the island."

X

Kurt couldn't get over the smile on Blaine's face as he finished his story, and he returned it.

"Alright," he looked to Rachel, the others. "I'm done, now who's next?"

"I can go," Sam raised his hand.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	5. Only You & I Know

_**A/N:** So I've been thinking about this, and maybe I should add this to the previous chapters too, but if there are any of these stories that are being told in this story that you would like done in a full-blown chapter fic, let me know, and those with the most mentions it might happen! ;)_

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_**This is a triple shift day.** There will be two more uploads today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 5 and Need This More._

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**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**5. Only You & I Know**

_(see new A/N above!)_

Sam had been thinking this out since midway through Sugar's story. Now he was ready to go. "Okay, so my story…"

"What's it about?" Artie asked.

"It's sci-fi, like… body snatchers kind of thing," he explained. "There's a small town somewhere, and they have their diner, but then this new diner opens one day, starts giving competition…"

"It's people!" Mike intoned dramatically panicked, and the others looked to him. "Never mind," he sat back, catching the smirk off Tina.

"There's three of us running the diner. Sam the cook," he pointed to himself, "Mercedes working the counter and Quinn at the tables. Then there's the people from the new diner. Their owner Puck is all about getting the people in, and Kurt is their man inside. But it's the little one you have to worry about." For a moment, Rachel thought it was her, but then she saw he meant Santana, who just smirked. "Thing is though… something weird's up."

X

_Sam's story_

It wasn't deserted. They still had plenty of customers, they saw. Even then, some stools were left noticeably empty, and their numbers were down. Even some they thought to be loyal to them to the end had gone and been missing from their regular breakfasts or lunches, dinners, drop-ins… even Sam's sister. He hadn't seen Brittany all day. When he had seen her out the window, walking down Main Street, he had ducked out of the kitchen and run after her.

"Brittany, where have you been?" he caught up and stepped in her path. She stopped. It seemed more than appropriate to call it that, she just stopped. She turned vacant eyes up to him, staring at him.

"Sam…" her voice was flat. "Sam, you're my brother," she stated, and he frowned.

"Are you feeling alright?" he asked, and again she paused before she could answer.

"Yes," she stated. He didn't like this. He took his sister home, sat her down and she just… sat there, like she was awake, alive, breathing, but there was just no energy or need to interact with her surroundings. He called Dr. Figgins, who had come right away. He mentioned having seen something similar, the Chang boy had shown these symptoms two days ago.

Everyone knew the Chang boy's story. Mike had been as mild-mannered as they came, but yesterday he had walked into the bank and attacked one of the tellers. He now sat in one of their few jail cells, and some people said they could hear him shouting and shouting, and that they'd had to sedate him. The teller, Artie, was petrified.

With nothing else to do, he'd left Brittany in her bed to hopefully sleep it off; and he'd gone back to work. He'd checked on her that night. She wasn't even sleeping. She just lied there, vacantly staring at the ceiling as she had since he'd put her there. If he couldn't see her chest rising and falling he would have thought her dead.

The next day, it was about noon when they could hear a commotion outside. Some of them had looked out the window, and then Quinn looked back. "Sam!" she called out.

When he got outside, he saw what had caught her attention. His sister stood in the middle of the street, her pale blue night gown streaked with blood from what he saw to be Finn, the stock boy from the grocery store. His apron was slashed and blood seeped out, not so much that he was in any mortal danger, barely more than surface wounds, but nevertheless caused by a knife Sam only now saw to be gripped in his sister's hand. Sheriff Beiste had noticed, too, standing a few feet from them, hand on her still-holstered gun.

"Brittany, step away from him and put the knife down," she ordered. She looked up, and her eyes weren't vacant anymore. If anything, they were lethal, raging.

"No," she declared.

"Brittany, do what she says," Sam begged with her. She looked up toward him.

"Sam… Sam, you're my brother," she said the same words, but they completely different now. The Sheriff pointed her gun.

"I said put down the knife."

"The only place I'll put it is through his heart," the blonde spoke with intent, raised the knife out as she looked down at her would-be victim. Sam didn't have time to protest that now the night gown bloomed with new blood, pierced by the Sheriff's bullets.

Two days later, an incredulous Sam was sitting in their living room for his sister's wake. He was still in shock. Quinn and Mercedes sat with him, supporting him as best they could. He wouldn't talk about what had happened, but then he could hear people talking, and the more he heard, the more he felt something like focus taking him. Miss Pillsbury, the librarian, said Dr. Figgins' office was closed when she had gone in for her appointment that morning, that the doctor was bedridden, according to his secretary. Mr. Schuester, the bank manager, said his teller had returned after his attack but then disappeared on him all over again…

Sam had stormed outside, and his co-workers followed. "It's alright, get some air," Quinn told him.

"Do you know what some of them are saying about my sister? They say she was crazy, that it's a good thing they put her down before she made more damage. Is that what you think?" he half-accused.

"Of course not. Brittany was our friend," Mercedes promised, and Quinn agreed with her.

"Rachel was her friend, both of ours, since we were kids. Do you see her here?"

"I heard she's sick," Quinn told him; he didn't believe it.

"Something weird's going on. First it was Mike Chang, then her, and now Dr. Figgins is out sick, Artie from the bank is gone, and Rachel didn't come…" He looked up the path, seeing the Sheriff planted there. She looked at him with blank eyes.

"Sam… Sam, I killed your sister," she droned, and his skin crawled; she sounded the same as Brittany had.

"Get out of here, go home," he called to her. She stared at him for a beat, but then she went. Sam looked back to the girls. "Did you see that?" They nodded, spooked. "Something is happening, to all of them. It's like an infection, spreading. There was Mike, and he attacked Artie, now Artie's gone. And Brittany, she was with Dr. Figgins, now he's sick, and Sheriff Beiste, she…" he had to pause, taken by the memory of his sister's body lying there, bloody…

"What's causing it?" Quinn asked, running on the assumption this was the case because, after what they'd seen, how could she not? They thought for a moment. Now that they were piecing things together, there were more people missing for the count, more stories of sudden violent outbursts. Not all of them had been as public as the events with Mike and with Brittany, but…

"The diner," Mercedes suddenly spoke. "The other one. You said a couple days ago Brittany had asked if you'd mind if she checked it out, maybe spy on the competition. And Mike, he's been eating there… a lot of them have… It's crazy, but…"

"No, I don't think it's crazy," Sam was finding a lot of the 'incidents' usually paired with a sighting of that person going into the new diner. It was easy, the place was practically across the street from them, they could see it through their windows. "It's them…"

"Like they're putting something in the food?" Quinn asked. Sam looked at her, then he ran back inside the house.

"Don't eat at the new diner, any of you!" he spoke for all to hear. They turned to him. "They're poisoning the customers, they're to blame for what happened to my sister!" he accused.

"Sam!" his mother got up from the couch. "Stop this." Mr. Schuester stepped up, putting a hand to Sam's mother's shoulder.

"Sue, I've got this," he told her, moving to pull Sam out of the room. He struggled to get away.

"Listen! Don't eat there!" he shouted back. Will got him back on the porch.

"Cool off! What happened was terrible, but your mother's been through enough, losing a daughter, don't make her lose a son, too." After Will had gone, Sam stood there, slamming the door shut and pacing before Quinn and Mercedes rejoined him, with three in tow.

"You okay?" Quinn asked.

"What do you think?" he shouted. He saw the three behind her. There was Tina, Sugar, and Blaine.

"I think you're right," Tina told him. "We have to do something or the whole town will be breaking apart." He looked to her, to the others.

"The diner," he announced. The six of them took off, taking the five minute walk from Sam's house to Main Street. On the way, they had found her walking along the sidewalk. They stopped.

"Sam… Sam, you're my friend…" Rachel droned.

"No…" he breathed, as Quinn grabbed his arm and the pack took off running again. They were just nearing Main Street when they met another pack, coming their way and looking ready to attack. At the lead were Finn and Mike, each of them with the same bloodthirsty rage in their eyes as he'd seen from his sister the day she died.

The six had turned and been forced to run away when the mob gave chase. They ran and ran, so much they were reaching the edge of town, and that was where Sugar noticed. "Wait! Look!" They turned and saw the mob had stopped and now just stood there. Sam looked to the side, seeing they'd stopped… at the welcome sign that marked the border to their town. The six had crossed, but the mob either couldn't or wouldn't.

"They're stuck," he panted. "We have to get to the diner, it has to be there."

They had circled far enough that, when they would re-enter town, if and when the mob renewed their chase, they would at least have a head start. They got to the diner, breaking in through the back. It was odd that no one was around to stop them, but they didn't question it, not when they found it in the store room… a large vat with a strange liquid inside. It was slimy, bubbly… but did not smell like anything…

"We have to get rid of it," Blaine looked to the others. He and Sam covered it up, carried the vat away until they could dispose of it.

In the following days, the town had seen immediate effect. The new diner had shut down, its owners never seen again. Rachel had recovered, so had Mr. Schuester and Miss Pillsbury, who had barely had time to develop symptoms that they were already on the mend. It seemed the less time they had been infected, the easier their recovery was. This wasn't the case for everyone. The first infected had died, wasted away, and a few had taken longer but they mended, while others had fallen into a deep coma. It would take all of them a while to rebuild.

"What do you think it meant?" Quinn asked Sam, the day they were tearing down the new diner. He looked to her. "On the vat, it said 'pilot test 1.'" He had no idea.

Hundreds of miles away, in a small town not unlike their own, the local diner was finding its business was growing divided, clients pouring into the street to see as the brand new diner opened its doors that day. Out front, the two men and the woman welcomed them. "You'll find everything you want and more. You'll never want to leave…"

X

"Woah…" Sugar breathed, when Sam had finished. The others had gotten into it as well, which only made him more inspired as he went.

"That was excellent," Rachel complimented.

"I liked the part where I died," Brittany added, grinning.

"Okay, who's next?" Rachel asked.

"Hey, guys," they looked up when Will came up to them. "Listen, it's going to be a while longer, so just hang in there," he told them. They just nodded. "What are you up to?" he asked with a curious smile.

"Nothing, teenage stuff," Santana was quick to speak, and the others backed her up.

"Right… okay…" Will went away. Tina watched him go.

"You know, I heard something last year… Think I have an idea for a story," she told the others.

"About Schuester?" Santana frowned.

"Him, and us… sort of," Tina nodded. "This must be a bit different, but just go with it," she instructed, sitting up to take the spotlight while she had it.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	6. Three Apples High

_**This is a double shift day.** There will be one more upload today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 6._

* * *

**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**6. Three Apples High**

As they looked to their new storyteller, the question on all their minds seemed to be the same: what was it that Tina had heard about Schuester that had inspired her like this?

"Remember last year, when he got sick and Miss Holiday replaced him?" she started, and it got a mix of smiles and nods out of them. "I accompanied him to the nurse's office. He was mumbling about all of us, saying he saw us like we were little kids. I mean, literally, little kids. He was hallucinating." This turned the reactions to chuckles and frowns.

"And that's a story?" Kurt asked.

"Well… what if he kept seeing us around, and not because of a fever anymore…"

X

_Tina's story_

They wouldn't leave him alone. He woke up in the morning and he'd see a couple of them standing there, like they were just waking up, too. Little Brittany with a teddy bear squeezed in her arms, little Kurt with a nightcap on his head… "What's for breakfast?" one would ask.

He'd be driving to work, and little Rachel would be riding shotgun, arguing his song choices on the radio, while little Puck and Finn would be shoving each other in the backseat.

Even as he got to work, to McKinley, and he saw the regular, teenage sized versions of his pupils here and there in the halls, their pintsized counterparts would trail behind him, single file, holding on to the one in front of them like a conga line in tiny shoes. No matter where he went, he could count on the possibility that he'd catch one there.

It had been happening for some time now, ever since he had been sick. It hadn't been so regular at first, but with each passing day they just took over more and more of his personal space, of his life. He didn't know what was causing it, and he wasn't able to go talk about it with anyone.

What would he even say? He was seeing his students as children everywhere he went. If he didn't come off as a creep or pervert, he would definitely be certifiable either way. They would lock him away for the rest of his life or pump him with drugs… Whatever the outcome, he couldn't see any of it being good.

It wasn't like he had a tumor or something like that. He'd gotten a scan, and a whole battery of tests; he was in perfect health. He just had continual hallucinations of a dozen or so kids following him day after day… so it had to be in his head.

He wasn't as freaked out about it as he thought he would be, to be honest. As disruptive as they could be, after a while he got used to it. Maybe that didn't help in making them go away, but if he did address this, faced it head on, he would never be able to ignore them again, and either he would succeed or he would sink further into insanity until it swallowed him whole.

Sometimes, just sometimes, he was actually glad for them, and that was what made it harder to think about getting rid of them. They brightened him up on the dark days, little packs of hopes and smiles. And some days when he was alone he would find himself putting cartoons on the television, watching as they would sit there and laugh, and watch… and he'd feel like he did good.

But eventually he had to come to the realization that he had to face his problem. He could figure it out if he really thought about it. Those kids hadn't just been making his days better for a few months now, it had been a couple of years, since the day the New Directions had come to exist. They had given his life a purpose like never before. His Spanish classes were one thing, but it could never compare to when he was in that choir room. And now they were growing, soon departing… and like they had taken care of him, he felt he had to look after them… like children leaving the nest…

One day he had stood in his living room, looked around. "Alright, come out now. We need to have a talk." He waited, and after a few seconds they would begin to appear, tentative. Little Tina from behind a chair, little Santana and Brittany from under the dining room table, little Artie rolling in from the hall… "Come on, come on," he nodded, waited. He heard giggles from behind the couch and went to find little Mike and Mercedes crouching there. "You, too."

"Us, too?" he turned and there were little Kurt and Blaine, Sam as well.

"Yes, all of you, let's go." Little Quinn peered out from behind the curtains, little Sugar as well. Little Rachel dragged little Finn and Puck in from the kitchen, and as he counted them off, Will sighed. "Okay, sit down." The kids ran about, looking for space on the ground. A few fought over where they sat, but then finally they were all waiting.

"Are we going to sing?" little Quinn asked.

"No, we're not going to sing," Will shook his head.

"Are we going to dance?" little Brittany asked.

"We're sitting!" little Puck laughed and got shoved by little Santana for his troubles.

"Not dancing either," Will called them back. "We have to say goodbye." That got their attention, and now fourteen little faces stared up at him. "We can't see each other anymore." Little Finn frowned, pointing at him. "No, I know you can still see me. I mean… all you guys, you can't follow me anymore."

"Where are you going?" little Mercedes asked.

"I'm not going anywhere, but you are." They stared at him, and he sighed, crouching down. "All you guys, you know how much I care about you." They nodded. "I don't think you'd be here otherwise. But the thing is you're not supposed to be here. It's time for us to move on. I think you guys were here so I could understand something. Now… I have, so I need to know you get that, and that you can go."

"Who's going to look after you now?" little Tina asked.

"You are," he smiled at her and she smiled back. "The big you, all of you, same as you have. And I'll look after myself, too." Little Puck was the first to get up, and he came right up to him. They have never been in contact, but the little vision hugged him, and Will smiled, patting at his Mohawk. Then he'd let go and run off, and he never returned. One by one, they had stood and done the same, hugging him before dashing off. Little Brittany asked him to look after her teddy bear, he promised, and then she ran off hand in hand with little Santana. The last was little Rachel, who stood there and looked at him. He waited, the last hurdle before he was free. Finally she had come and said her goodbyes.

Then they were gone, for good, he could tell. His apartment felt too quiet at first, but then he got over it, he moved on. He put that chapter of his life behind him and concentrated on those kids, no, these soon to be young adults, never speaking of his mad months with fourteen figments of his imagination.

X

"That was sweet… Creepy a little, but sweet," Quinn declared.

"I don't know," Tina shrugged. "Sometimes I wonder about him, you know? He cares more than we give him credit… even if he gets it wrong now and then," she smiled, and they laughed. "Good old Schue."

"Well then," Rachel called up. "That's six down… Who wants to take us halfway?" There was hesitation.

"I can go," Mike raised his hand, sitting at Tina's side.

"What's your story going to be?" Sam asked. Mike paused, unsure. Tina leaned in to whisper at his ear.

"Oh… Maybe…" She just gave him a nod. "Okay. It's not really a story, but I can make it one."

"What is it?" Finn asked.

"When we were younger, my cousin and I would play a game, where we pretended we dug up a thing in our yard before we realized it was… something else."

"Like what?" Blaine asked. Tina smiled, and Mike answered.

"A dinosaur egg… and then it hatched."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	7. Prehistoric Friend

_**This is a triple shift day.** There will be two more uploads today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 7 and This Could Be The One To Do Me In._

* * *

**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**7. Prehistoric Friend**

Mike had played the dino egg game with his cousin Patrick so many times back in the day. Most times they would run through the whole scenario again, from the discovery and on. For the most part it would stay the same, though it didn't stop them from allowing some edits, depending on mood, location… temperature.

"Okay, well, there'll be me, and… maybe just a friend instead of a cousin, so… Sam?" Mike pointed, and he nodded. Brittany raised her hand. "Yeah?"

"Can I be the dinosaur?" she asked very matter-of-factly.

"Well it's…" Mike started, but he looked to the side and, catching Santana's shrug, he interpreted: "Sure… I'll see what I can do."

X

_Mike's story_

It had been a week of record highs. The heat was intense and, if they could, they had been told to just stay home. So then of course, Mike's dog had not only found his way out the minute it had started to cool off, he had also gone and dug the hell out of the neighbor's yard. Said neighbor was off on vacation through the end of the next week, so Mike had called in his best friend Sam to help tend the destroyed lawn.

It was turning out to be a bigger task than they had anticipated, but they had to get through it. They had worked for hours, working up a soaker of a sweat and possibly a crimson sunburn, when their shovels both came to hit something and they paused. "Maybe it's a pipe," Sam had shrugged, but then Mike had looked and he frowned.

"Looks more like a rock… Big one," he pulled back. "Do we get it out of there?"

"Can you move it?" Sam asked, and Mike nudged it with his foot: it moved. "Grab one side, I'll get the other," Sam suggested, unsure of the weight. They pulled the object free, planting it on the lawn as they looked down at it.

"No way that's a rock," Mike wasn't sure now. The boys crouched, touching the thing. "Almost looks like a big egg," he pointed out.

"What kind of egg, I mean it was buried, so whatever was in there is probably dead by now."

"What if it's not?" Mike asked, and they stared at it for a while. "We could try and make it hatch."

"With what?" Sam asked.

"We'll figure something out." They carried the egg thing to his shed, in the back of his house, and the hatching attempts began. They varied, some crazier than others. Sam was still not fully convinced they weren't really attempting to hatch a rock.

Then one night, Mike had called him in haste, saying the egg was moving, crackling… Something was trying to get out. Sam had come right away, finding Mike standing back from the shed. Seeing his friend arrive, he had led him in – slowly.

The egg, as old as it must have been, had indeed cracked and, in the time it had taken Sam to arrive, had gone and broken open to reveal its load… It was covered in slime, scales, and remained curled up and whining, but the lizard-like thing was alive. Sam stared in awe.

"What do we do?" he asked.

For the next two months, the boys had looked after the little creature. They had called her Brittany, deciding it was female, though they couldn't really tell one way or the other. Brittany responded surprisingly well to their presence, almost like they were her parents. She grew faster than they expected, from barely a foot long at hatching to being three feet tall at two months. She was growing stir-crazy, they could tell, being stuck in the shed all day. They played with her, and she would be happy, but it wasn't enough.

"Maybe we should take her out… You know, for a walk," Mike suggested one day. Brittany reacted at that, like she understood them.

"Yeah, that's a good idea, because that won't go wrong," Sam frowned.

"We can go at night," Mike shrugged.

After more back and forth, Sam had finally agreed. They waited until two in the morning, figuring there was less chance of anyone seeing them. Brittany had not liked the leash at first, but when they'd opened the door and she understood she could go, she didn't mind so much, and Mike was almost yanked off his feet trying to follow. He and Sam had to run at first, but finally she had slowed to a walk. They laughed, seeing how giddy she was.

"She's going to want to go out all the time now," Sam pointed out.

"We can alternate nights," Mike suggested.

They had started doing just that. There were times when they had come close to being spotted but didn't, other nights when weather didn't permit going; those were the worst for her. At the same time, they tried to train her. She understood them to a point, and with how they grew to care for her, they wanted to make sure she could survive.

Sam had gotten a feeling something had gone wrong one night, when Mike didn't text. They would always text the other when they took out and then returned Brittany to the shed. The return text wasn't coming. He called Mike, and there he found out. Brittany, who had grown another foot by then, had broken through the leash, and they had gotten split up.

"She only knows her usual route. If she gets further, she won't know where she is…"

They had found her once Sam had gone to help on the search. She was alright, and she looked so relieved to find her 'dads' she had all but jumped on them. They had taken her back to the shed, glad it was done.

The next morning, while eating breakfast with his parents, the news on television, he had heard the jittery reporter's voice and his spoon clunked into his cereal bowl. "This is Emma Pillsbury, reporting live. Last night, a local couple sighted what they could only describe as a living dinosaur. As you can see here in this picture from the witnesses' phone, the creature is approximately four feet tall. Hoax or reality?"

In the following days, the story had caught fire. More reports started coming in. Some were from that same night, when Brittany had gotten away, but others were from before, and the locations told Sam and Mike whether they were real or just attention seekers. There were a lot of both. Either way, they couldn't walk Brittany anymore.

Then there had been the attack claim. Mike knew it wasn't true, but he couldn't tell them without revealing the truth. What was worse was that it got police chief Sylvester to trust on the story. She would get to the bottom of this, and Mike believed it.

"They'll hurt you if they find you," he told Brittany one night. She turned those inquisitive eyes on hi, and he smiled, patting her head. "I want to keep you safe, but I don't know how." The scaled creature had given as close to a reassuring gesture, bumping his shoulder with her head.

The next morning she was gone. The door to the shed had been broken from the inside. He called Sam, but neither of them could find her. She had just disappeared. In the following months, years, the story having gone and faded into nothing but an urban legend, the boys had to come to their own conclusions. They didn't believe she had been captured. Instead, she had done what they had taught her. She kept herself safe. They would keep looking for her, but they would never see her again.

X

Brittany looked almost upset that her namesake had gone away, and she sat there quietly for some time.

Now that half of them had gone, the field was growing smaller, leaving the seven who had yet to go to feel eyes on them – who would go next?

"Alright, I'll do it," Mercedes had finally spoken up.

"Excellent," Rachel smiled. "What's it about?" Mercedes just gave a… smirk.

"It's bordering on reality."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	8. We're All Mad Here

_**This is a double shift day.** There will be one more upload today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 8._

* * *

**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**8. We're All Mad Here**

Once she had her idea, choosing her 'characters' revealed itself so easily, too easily maybe, and so she had started things with a disclaimer: don't think too much of it.

"My story takes place in an insane asylum," she revealed. "Not nowadays, maybe a few decades back, I don't know, you decide for yourself." She wasn't about to say 'sometimes I think you're all nuts,' but looking at some of the faces around her, she was thinking a few of them at least were thinking it for themselves. "Someone gets thrown in…"

"You?" Santana asked.

"Yes," Mercedes frowned. "But she wasn't supposed to be. They threw her in there to shut her up." Santana went to speak again, but Mercedes gave her a look, so she stopped, and the story could begin.

X

_Mercedes' story_

She woke up feeling like the world was spinning but she wasn't. For some time then she kept her eyes shut.

"She's awake!" a hushed voice rang in her ear, and a moment later, she felt the bed sink on her left, then her right. It made her eyes pop open and, dizzy as she still was, having a face swimming overhead was not the best way to peacefully return to the world. Instead, she started to shout. The girl, who was all but straddling her at this point, slammed her hand over Mercedes' mouth to quiet her. "No, no, no, wouldn't want Daddy to get angry," the girl chastised. "Will you be quiet now?" she asked in some sort of sweet southern accent.

"W-who are you?"

"Call me Sucre. Pleasure meeting you. Welcome to our little corner of paradise," she turned a smile on before getting back up. "Dear, dear, look at all these straps," she proceeded to loosen the restraints which tied Mercedes to the bed. "Did you make someone very angry? Or very happy?" she gave a sly grin.

Mercedes sat up as soon as she could, which was a mistake, still dizzy, and she slammed back down. Her head lolling back and forth, she caught sight of another girl, head peeking out from behind a bed, all scared-little-girl blue eyes and fly away blonde hair. She reminded Mercedes of a puppy, apprehensive around new people. The minute she'd seen her, the girl had ducked down.

"Well done, you've gone and scared the child again," a new voice spoke, and Mercedes' head turned the other way. She spotted the brunette at the window, all sort of elongated with her back and head up, one arm folded before herself propping up the elbow of her other arm, bent up to hold a long stick like one of those long cigarette holders. The first girl just shrugged at her before turning back to Mercedes.

"That's Rachel," Sucre introduced.

"Miss Berry," she corrected.

"Thinks she runs the place because she was in the movies," Sucre intoned. "And that little scared thing over there, that's Brittany. She doesn't talk much. She just… whispers in people's ears, so let her," she explained.

Finally things had stopped spinning. When that happened though, Mercedes almost wished they hadn't. In her dizzy state she hadn't seen they all wore gray sort of pyjamas and that the room they were in contained barely more than their four beds, each equipped with the same restraints as hers, while there were bars on the windows and the door looked heavy and locked. Finally… it was all coming back to her.

"Who's in charge here?" she breathed.

"Oh, you'll want Daddy," Sucre nodded. "Come on, we'll take you to him," she told her, moving around to the other bed, pulling for the blonde to stand. "Come on, sweetheart, come on…" she spoke, sweet as ever. The blonde wasn't so small after all, taller than all of them, but she clung to Sucre's arm like a lifeline, shuffling behind her.

"We're all going, is that so?" Miss Berry huffed.

"Yes, now get your shoes on," Sucre snapped, and Mercedes startled. Her voice wasn't the same now, neither was her posture. Now she turned to Mercedes. "What are you doing still in bed, you want to see the man or not?" she spat.

"Wonderful," Miss Berry sighed, turning to the confused new girl. "Meet Zucchero. She's intense." Mercedes didn't know what to do with that, so she followed. The door apparently was not locked, and they could get out of their room. As she followed the three girls, Mercedes looked around, seeing more people everywhere in the same pyjamas, they led her into a large rec room to a man in a long white coat, a doctor perhaps?

"Hey!" Zucchero called out and the man turned. He fixed his round, gold-rimmed glasses.

"Sugar," he nodded to her.

"It's Zucchero," she corrected him. The man just looked past her. Brittany bowed her head to rest at Zucchero's shoulders, while Miss Berry looked around like she hated being around the others in the rec room.

"Miss Jones, our new girl. I've been meaning to come and introduce myself. I'm Dr. Hummel."

"What am I doing here?" Mercedes asked him.

"Don't you remember? Your family brought you to us. You've been under sedation for nearly two days, I understand you might be disorientated but don't worry, you're safe here," he told her.

The days began to pass without her noticing, soon a week had gone. In that time, she had been treated to stories of Miss Berry and her career 'in the pictures.' Brittany had first whispered to her a hello on the third day. Since then, she had whispered to her a handful more times. And in her week she had met more versions of this Sugar girl. Delicate Satou, rowdy Socker, and suspicious Azucar…

She needed to get out of there. She didn't belong in this place. She had tried pleading her case with Dr. Hummel, but he didn't believe her. This left her one option: escape. It didn't take long for her roommates to catch on, all of them, Miss Berry, Brittany, and all five Sugars. Not one of them intended to rat her out. Instead, they offered to help. Zucchero took the lead on the plan, though this didn't go so easily when she would suddenly disappear and they would be stuck with someone else until she would return.

She'd been stuck there nearly a month before they could put the plan in motion. To be honest, part of her would be sad to leave them. As strange as they were, they had been good to her. They didn't deserve being locked up like this, she didn't think. Yes, Sugar was off, with how she would change, but that didn't make her dangerous, to herself or others, none of them were. So in her mind it was clear: they should come with her. They could all live together, away from here and safe. She could care for them.

"Alright, now go," Miss Berry told Satou one day as they stood in the hall. She turned back to the starlet.

"You're sure this will work?" the dainty girl asked softly.

"Yes, now go on, Zucchero says we'll need it," Mercedes told her. Brittany whispered at Satou's ear what must have been encouragement.

"Very well," she went on, approaching the janitor. Figgins was a sweet man, never sweeter than to Satou. The others had waited for her to emerge, knowing for some reasons she was the only one he responded to, almost like apparent to a child. When she returned, it was with a smile that she presented her reward: a key. They also knew Satou to be an ace pickpocket.

That night, the four girls, once Azucar – who fearfully hesitated against the plan – gave way to Socker, made their great escape. They found themselves a small house, out of sight, out of mind. Mercedes would look after them for as long as they lived.

X

"How do you know so many words for Sugar?" Santana had to ask when the story was done. Sugar shushed her, so very pleased by the character for her part.

"Have to say, I wasn't sure at first, but I liked crazy Rachel," the girl in question nodded.

"Too easy," Kurt looked to those who looked to be holding their tongues.

"Alright," Rachel frowned. "Who would like to go next?"

"I've got one," Puck raised his hand halfway. "If you liked being crazy, I don't know how you'll feel about this one."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	9. Years and Years and Years

_**This is a triple shift day.** There will be two more uploads today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 9 and The Late Quinn Fabray._

* * *

**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**9. Years and years and years**

He had a feeling some of them were expecting certain things out of his story, for him to launch into something that would either be violent or out of line. Truth was it was something partially inspired by something he'd gone through with his Nana.

"Okay, are you guys ready?" he asked. He saw Rachel look around for what he guessed to be Schuester's proximity to their circle, and then she nodded. "My story is set at the fifty year reunion of McKinley High's class of 2012," he announced, and the reactions ranged from shock to snorts.

"Wait, so we'd be like… sixty-eight?" Mike asked. "What if we're… well…"

"Let's just assume everyone has made it, alright? Come on, it'll be funny. Oh, and I'll pair us up."

X

_Puck's story_

It had been a long time since they'd last walked these halls. Even accounting for their own children coming here, the last time had probably been… ten years ago, at the last reunion. This time around, they had done a couple of things differently. This wasn't exactly getting easier, as they got older. A lot of the attendees would coax children or grandchildren to come along, on top of their spouses. And if that wasn't enough, they had set for the old Glee Club to take the stage together, something they hadn't done, all at once, probably since the twenty year reunion, and that was thirty years ago.

They had begun to arrive then, two by two. Finn and Rachel, Kurt and Blaine, Sam and Mercedes, Mike and Tina, Santana and Brittany, and Puck and Quinn… They would go and meet, as always in the choir room. The place had seen its share of redecorations, but they had spent enough time in it that, before long, it still felt like home. Puck, shuffling along, had gone and lowered himself to look at something on the first step where their chairs had once been lined up. "You're going to throw your back out again, I'm not picking you up," she told him. You would never have pegged her so close to seventy, but then they could have seen that one coming. For his part, as much as he'd tried to maintain his 'guns,' they had lost their vigor by then, and as she had mentioned, his back was known to act up. But he still had to see.

"Carved my initials here," he called, straining.

"You checked at the last reunion, didn't you?" she frowned.

"No, carved them at the last reunion," he laughed. "At least I think I did…" he couldn't find them.

"Other side, Puckerman," a new voice spoke, and Puck worked to get up, laughing.

"What's that?" he asked, and Mike pointed to the other end of the step. "Ah, see?" he showed to Quinn. "Hello, gorgeous," he greeted Tina with a smirk, and she hugged him.

"Tell him he's not eighteen anymore," she told him and Quinn, hugging her next, indicating Mike. "Thinks he can still do the choreography like he used to do it." She looked to her husband. "You need to let him do it," she nodded to the door, where a tall boy stood.

"That your grandson? He looks just like you," Puck pointed.

"Pretty good dancer, too," Tina beamed, the proud grandma, then, "Not as good as you," she promised Mike, though she turned a wink to the boy.

"Wait until you hear our granddaughter," they were joined then by Rachel, Finn at her arm. The once towering quarterback had lost some inches over the years, none helped by the permanent slouch. The girl in question stood behind them, and if the boy had been Mike's spitting image, the girl looked ready to bolt – she didn't want to be there. "Go on, dear, show them," Rachel nodded, pulling her forward.

"Grandma…" the girl blushed, giving wide, urging eyes to her.

"She's just a little shy is all. It's fine," she told her old classmates, miming a smile to her granddaughter, which the girl did her best to replicate. As soon as she had been 'released' she had gone to sit in a corner.

When Kurt and Blaine walked in, they were seen to be wearing, if not matching then complementary outfits. They were just as they had always been, deep down, though with fifty years to grow on. Of all of them, they were the ones, probably, who had one of the biggest remaining ties to McKinley: their son was the principal. This fact would have been known by all whether they had asked to know or not, especially from Kurt, who would see someone who didn't know his son was principal as a chance to tell him or her.

"Still have hair to gel there, Blaine?" they had been met by another couple as they walked the halls.

"Hello, Santana," Kurt spoke, and it was as always with the four of them. They would come to these functions, like they hadn't seen each other recently, when of course they had: their son the principal had married their daughter… the cheerleading coach. They shared grandchildren. The two of them, a boy and a girl – there was a third on the way – were off with grandma Brittany, staring at trophies. "We should get in there, who knows what they'll have us do."

"Scared?" Santana challenged.

"Want to see high kick?" he took it, but Blaine just took his arm and led him into the choir room. Santana went to Brittany and the grandkids, hearing the tail-end of her telling them about their last win at Nationals.

"Where's Mommy's trophies?" their grandson asked, and their dutiful grandmother showed them.

"Alright you two, we need to find your parents so your grandmas can go practice."

Sam and Mercedes arrived just as the last couple arrived. Artie and Sugar were not of the class of 2012, but as always, they remained part of their New Directions, so they would be there. Their other members of the class of 2013 had all married into the 2012 class, unlike them. Sam and Mercedes were accompanied by their son, a fellow McKinley graduate who had his picture in one of the other trophy cases, being something of a football legend to the school. He was accompanied by his wife and twin daughters.

Once they had all landed in the choir room and the greetings and conversations receded, the talk now turned to this performance they were 'commissioned' to give. They hadn't even agreed on a song yet… and Artie had fallen asleep, snoring away in his wheelchair.

"We can't do at least half of what we used to do, what do they expect? Ke$ha?" Sugar told the others, nudging for Artie to wake up.

"Don't, she'll want to do it," Santana indicated Brittany.

"He's the same way," Tina sympathized, pointing to Mike.

"It doesn't matter," Finn told them. "Personally I'm just happy to be here with all of you," he declared, and this seemed to be the case all around.

"So how about a classic," Mercedes told them.

"Don't stop…" Rachel smiled.

X

There was silence for a beat, followed by another mixed bag of reactions. Some were happy with their imagined fates, others questioned Puck's choices. Artie and Sugar looked to one another, while Quinn stared Puck down. He shrugged to her, figuring he was better off leaving it there.

"I don't like thinking that far ahead," Tina commented.

"Alright… well… Uh…" Rachel was slightly lost, but then she looked to those who'd yet to pass. "Who would like to go next?"

"I need more time," Blaine told her, and both Santana and Quinn gave the same request. This left two…

"Alright, I'll go," Brittany shrugged, sitting up, then moving off her chair to sit on the ground.

"What are you doing?" Mercedes asked.

"It's better like this," Brittany promised. "It's spookier… I'm not sure why, it just is…" They hesitated. "Come on, sit," she insisted. So they went. Even Artie agreed, letting Mike take him from his chair to the ground. "Good, that's better," Brittany nodded. "Okay…"

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	10. Blood Red & Shock White

_**This is a double shift day.** There will be one more upload today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 10._

* * *

**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**10. Blood Red & Shock White**

Brittany could picture things in her head better than people could imagine. Sometimes though it was harder to really express into words what it was she saw. Today, her plan was clear: she would make them feel it… and she'd scare them good.

"There's four of us in this one," she nodded to herself. "Me, and Santana, and… and Quinn, and…" she looked to the others, choosing… "Rachel," she decided.

"What's it about?" she asked.

"It's better if you don't know," Brittany told her. Rachel looked around to the others, who just shrugged, figuring they'd find out soon enough, especially as Brittany's face shifted all of a sudden, looking almost dangerous… none more than her voice… it came off scratchy and sweet and slyly menacing. If they couldn't see her, they would have thought it was someone else. "It's a dark and rainy night…"

X

_Brittany's story_

The car went carefully down the empty road. It was dark, and the chill in the summer air was not helped by the rain beating down in the car, the four girls were just glad for what little warmth they had in there. The storm had cut short what had been a great day at the beach. They had stayed until the rain had forced them to grab everything and run to get in their car and leave.

"I told you we should have gone before, but you just had to stay," Rachel had finally huffed, an hour into their trip back.

"It wasn't that bad," Santana shrugged.

"The sky was black!" Rachel frowned.

"Alright, look, it doesn't matter anymore," Quinn spoke, in the driver's seat. "What you should worry about is us making it home." Almost on cue, the car sputtered and jerked before slowing to a stop. "See?"

"Is it the gas? I filled it just…" Brittany asked from the back. Quinn tried to get the car moving, failing.

"Not the gas. What do we do now?"

"I don't know, but I have no service," Santana informed them. The others checked as well – nothing. "So, what, we wait until another car comes by?"

"There's a house, over there," Brittany pointed across the field. It was all on its own, and the lights were on. "Maybe they'll let us use their phone."

"We don't have much of a choice, it's that or freeze here," Rachel put her vote in. Quinn looked off to the house, uncertain, but they were right, it was their one option now.

"Let's make it quick then."

They got out of the car, bodies shocked awake from the cold rain lapping at them, and took off running to the house. They could barely see, just following the light ahead of them until they could reach the porch and get cover. They were dripping and shivering, so Rachel knocked, tried the bell… nothing.

"Maybe they're…" her hand nudged the door, and it opened, "… not home."

"Let's just go in, we can explain," Santana half-shoved her in, following and taking the other two in the process. "Not going to freeze out there, and it was open." They would have argued this if it wasn't so cold out there and all warm and toasty in the house. Quinn shut the door.

"Hurry this up, something feels off."

"Hello?" Rachel called out. "Sorry for just coming in like this, the door was open and it's rain…" Santana stopped her.

"Wasn't it all lit up when we were out there?" she pointed out, and it finally dawned on them that they were in near darkness. The only light seemed to come from the adjacent rooms, and just barely. They followed one of those lights, and there they came to see… it was all a trick. The lights flooded at the windows, but that was as far as it went. From outside, the place had looked inviting, especially in their situation, but now they were finally seeing the inside for what it was, and the chills they felt now were not for cold.

"We should get out of here," Brittany breathed, and there was no argument there. They backed up to the door, and Quinn reached to open it.

"It's locked!" she gasped, trying again. Now the window lights went out, swallowing them into total darkness. They screamed, startled, blindly reaching for one another's hands.

"What do we do?" Santana asked.

"Let's try the window, this way," Rachel led the pack. They moved as best they could, feeling out around them with their feet. It seemed impossible, but they reached the window… which couldn't be opened.

"Smash it!" Quinn told them.

"With what?" Brittany asked. Quinn peeled off her soaked jacket, wrapping it around her hand before attempting to punch it out. Her cry of pain told them that couldn't work. "There's a lamp, right? Use that." Now Santana tried it, but it didn't work. They did their best, not finding a thing that would work, and when even what amounted to a brick barely dented it, they knew they had a problem.

"I don't like this…" Rachel cried.

"Come on, there has to be a light, a way out…" Quinn spoke, tugging the group forward. "Maybe we should split up, better chances of finding something."

"I don't know…" Brittany didn't like it.

"It's our only shot," Santana agreed. It took a moment, but slowly they let go of one another. "Let's go." Carefully, they tried to spread out, even though they saw nothing.

Brittany followed a path she hoped would lead her to the other side room, where they had also seen light. She held her hands before herself, feeling for something, anything to hold on to. She closed her eyes, figuring it was easier to believe she saw nothing because she chose not to instead of because it was forced on her.

She followed the wall until her fingers touched the cool glass surface of the window. She felt for the edge and pulled… it opened. She gasped, pushed her hand into the night air, felt the rain. She opened her eyes, gifted with the too faint moon glow.

"Hey, it's open!" she called out, but no one answered. The thought came to her that if she climbed out the window she could go around and get the door open. So she did… but her feet didn't touch ground. Instead she slipped and fell several feet before landing on muddy ground. She was stunned for a moment before she could try and get up. "Help! Help me, please!" she yelled as hard as she could, working to stand.

She felt around and then realized the earth walls around her opened into a sort of tunnel. The hole was too high and slippery to try and climb, so with no other choice, she followed the tunnel… until she found a ladder going up, up to a trap door that opened up… back inside the house, and the dark.

She stalked through, muddy feet slipping on tiles. She didn't know where the others had gotten off to, but then she found a new door that opened, and stairs that went down… the basement. There was no other way, maybe there'd be a window…

Her climb down the stairs was made chaotic when all of a sudden music began to play all around, at ear-shattering volume. Instinctively her hands went to cover her ears, and her feet tripped, sending her tumbling down the rest of the way. She knew she had screamed, felt her throat strain, but any sound she made was cancelled out by the thrumming music. She couldn't count on her eyes, and now her ears, and her mind could hardly latch on to a solid thought.

She managed to stand, walked, until she felt something on her ankle, no… someone. A hand had grabbed her ankle and she panicked, kicking out as hard as she could until it released her and she backed up… into more hands behind her. She screamed, backing away again… into more hands, and then something hard hit her in the head from behind. She stumbled, stunned, but still moving. She felt around as best she could in hopes to find something to defend herself with.

She wasn't sure just what it was her hand had found, but it had good weight and she could grip and swing and that was good enough for her. She gripped it and at any hand that found her she swung until whoever it was stopped moving. She could feel her heart racing, jolting at each new presence, but she kept fighting back. She waited, waited…

Then the morning light was pouring from a small window up above and she woke up. She startled, jolted with memories of her last conscious moments. Her vision would need to adjust to new light, and her ears rang still. Only then she could feel something sticky, everywhere… Her arms were red, her shirt, her legs… blood, she could tell, and she felt for herself… no cuts.

Her eyes began to settle, and then she saw her on the ground, arm stretched out and covered in blood that was definitely her own, from the way it pooled around her head. "Rachel?" she felt her throat like sand paper, and her scream came like jagged glass.

But then she looked around, and there was Santana, there was Quinn, just as dead, deep gashes on their bodies opening them to spill their blood as well. Brittany couldn't breathe, feeling her heart lunge at each sight.

And when her foot touched it, she saw what it was she had brandished the night before… a long blade, now splashed with her friends' blood.

When the police would find the dead girls, three would be ruled as homicide, while the fourth, with the long blonde hair and ashen face, they could only guess her heart had given out from fright.

X

If it was all in the performance, Brittany had floored them all. It took a moment before anyone moved, and when they did, to get back in their seats, brushing a neighbor's arm came with startled sounds.

"I… Okay… Good, alright, who… who's next?" Rachel cleared her throat. Brittany was just innocently smiling to herself.

"I think I can go next," Finn eventually raised his hand. "It's not as bloody, I promise." There were some relieved faces at that. "It's a cop story."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	11. Let the Sirens Wail

_**This is a triple shift day.** There will be two more uploads today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 11 and Step Forty, Recognize a Willing Ear._

* * *

**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**11. Let the Sirens Wail**

He could probably have gone a while back, but then every time one story would end he would sense someone was ready to go, or they would speak first. He didn't mind waiting. Now there were four of them left, so he decided to go for it.

"Hang on," Santana suddenly spoke. "Let's make things interesting. Were you going to make yourself the big hero here?" she asked. He hesitated, giving her all she needed to know. "Right, okay, here's a challenge from me to you. Give that to someone else, and you take another role instead." The others watched Finn, curious.

"I… Yeah, okay, I guess I can do that." He took a moment to rearrange things in his head. "Right, so Mike… Mike is a cop. I'm his partner." Mike nodded to himself. "And there's tension in our precinct because there are people starting to say there's a dirty cop among us…"

X

_Finn's story_

He waited by the squad car for Hudson to get down. Soon they would head out, patrolling as they did, waiting on a call.

"Hey, Chang!" he heard and looked up to see Detective Burt Hummel, one of the more storied officers he knew. His son was just coming out of the academy later that year, so he heard. "See the game last night? I think you owe me" he teased.

"Yeah, I'll catch you later!" Mike called after him, and the Detective headed off.

Finally his partner came and they went. It wasn't long before they got called in, and this was a big one. There was a report of a break in at a jewelry store. Chang and Hudson were the first ones on the scene. They approached with caution, ready to take out their guns if need be. They had entered the building, looked around. Mike had heard something, and he quietly signalled Hudson to follow, hands on their weapons, which they pulled out at the next sound. When they saw him there, working through the safe, they had him cornered.

"Freeze!" Mike called, and then everything happened very fast. The robber turned and Mike saw he had a gun, so he shot, but the robber didn't go down, and he was going to shoot – at Hudson. Mike had gone before him, and then everything went blank.

When he woke up, the brightness hurt his eyes and he shut them again. Before long he would to understand he was in a hospital bed. Captain Beiste had come in, and there he had been informed of the details he'd lost. He had taken the bullets, jumping in front of his partner. The robber had gotten away. Mike felt frustration at that, though he was made to keep lying down by the pain, and by his wife. Tina looked like she had been crying, and she had been so relieved to see him awake. Others had come by, Hudson, both Hummels…

But then as more time went by in his hospital stay, he heard more things. The store that had been robbed, they knew, was a suspected front for a criminal organization, and something about the whole case had come out suspicious. It took some time more before he heard other whispers, ones that said the finger was starting to point to Mike as the dirty cop they were looking for. He had gotten this confirmation when Internal Affairs started coming about. He was innocent, he knew, but according to them he was their guy. They wouldn't take long to formally accuse him, he knew.

Now he was being released the next day, and he was all but expecting them to be there waiting to book him. He tossed and turned and woke up in the middle of the night, only to see his partner sitting there at his bedside, slouched forward over a newspaper. "You're still here," Mike told him, and he looked up. "You didn't have to."

"No, I did. Need to talk to you about something." He watched him sit back, looking around. "I know you're not dirty," he started, and Mike was thankful for his trust, but then… "I know, because it's me." Mike just sort of laughed at first.

"If this is your way of trying to cheer me up, there are better ways." But Hudson's face wasn't changing, and Mike grew serious. "Finn?"

"It wasn't supposed to happen like this, I never meant for you to get pulled into this. I should have done something before, but…"

"Why are you telling me this now?" Mike frowned.

"Look, we're partners, I need your help. You can't tell them about this. I need the money… I'll help get you cleared, if you keep this to yourself. I can pin it on someone else, Hummel…" Mike stared at him. "You keep this to yourself, Chang, and it all goes away." The threat was clear.

When he was let out of the hospital, as expected, they were right there to bring him in. He had a choice. He could protect his partner, let another innocent man get dragged through the mud, or he could do what his conscience told him to do and give all that he knew. Really, now that he had been told, there had been plenty of signs he'd just not really connected before, and it made him sick to think about it, which made his choice clear.

He had told I.A. everything he knew, from Hudson's confession down to all those things he had picked up on, plenty of which could be verified and stack up to become a solid case against Hudson, who had conveniently disappeared. The search was on to bring him in, and for days it was all over the news.

He had gone out to get him and Tina their usual Friday night pizza when he got a call from home. He smiled, answering. "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten the…"

"I thought we had a deal." Mike felt his blood run cold.

"Hudson, what are you…"

"Might want to get here with that pizza, we're starving."

He ran back to his car, drove home as fast as he could. When he got there he burst through the door to find his wife struggling, tied to a chair… and trying to signal him. He turned just as Hudson tackled him, pinned him to the ground. He was still recovering, despite having been released, and his partner knew just where to press to awaken the pain in him, even without the gun, which Hudson held pointed to his face.

"I thought we wouldn't have to come to this," Hudson grunted. "Hummel had his time, it's time for new blood."

"Doesn't work like that. He doesn't deserve that, and neither do I, they're your mistakes. Now you bring Tina into this…" he managed to overpower him, freeing himself, and they struggled for a while before Mike suddenly managed to get his hands on the fallen gun and take down Hudson.

The room stood still for a while, with the shock of it all. Hudson was done, not getting up again. Finally Mike was able to get up and go to his wife's aid. He untied her and she quickly hugged him, shaking with fright. But it was done now, she was safe, they both were.

Soon Detective Hummel would arrive with everyone else to process the scene and take the body away. The Detective already knew about Hudson's attempts to pin the deed on him, and now there was this. He had Chang's back the whole way. And when he made detective, Mike knew somehow their paths would continue to cross. In fact, they became partners.

X

When he finished, Finn looked to Santana as though to say 'there, challenge met?' and she gave a bow of the head and small clap.

"I like cop Mike," Tina grinned, turning the expression to her boyfriend with a new layer to it that was just for them, and he laughed.

"Okay, well good," Rachel beamed, back to her 'hosting' duties. "Three of you left," she looked to Quinn, Santana, and Blaine. "Any of you ready to go?" They looked to one another.

"Well…" Blaine spoke up, hesitant. "I have something, it's just… not entirely mine," he explained.

"What do you mean?" Rachel asked.

"It's sort of… based on something else, a book, I…"

"Oh, I know what it is," Kurt's ears perked up. "Tell it," he tapped his boyfriend's knee. Blaine looked to him, still with an uncertain face. "Go on, tell it. I liked it, loved it." Blaine smiled – okay.

"Got a challenge for him, too?" Finn looked to Santana.

"Oh, I'm sure I can think of something," she smirked.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	12. May the Odds

_**This is a double shift day.** There will be one more upload today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 12._

* * *

**"Let Me Tell You a Story"**

**12. May the Odds**

Blaine wasn't sure what Santana would throw at him, with this new 'challenge' kick of hers. But then as soon as he had revealed that this book of his was actually a trilogy, that it was the Hunger Games, she'd seen him coming, and she had extended her challenge, which again involved recasting his leads. So after a moment he had decided to take that challenge and run with it.

"Okay, who wants the leads?" he asked, and two hands displayed the most… fervor. "Right, so… Sam, you'll be lead, and for the other…" Her arm would detach soon just from trying to go higher. "Sugar," he nodded.

X

_Blaine's story_

He was twelve years old the first time he saw her, and at that point for all of a few seconds. The Reaping was done, he had not been picked. But now the people of District 7 would gather here and there to see the recaps, from all the Reapings, after they had seen their tributes off. He had changed out of the clothes his mother had put him in that morning, and now they watched the recap. When they had shown District 10, swept across the faces of waiting children, that was when he had seen her, in the pack of other twelve-year-old girls. He didn't know what it was, but he had noticed her.

Then a year had passed, and with it came another Reaping, and again he wasn't picked, and again they sat for the recap, and now in the pack of thirteen-year-old girls… he saw her again. She wasn't picked either, and this was maybe the first time he felt a relief with that knowledge. Each year that passed after that, with both of their names entered more and more, he could feel more anxiety as he waited for the District 10 tributes to be revealed. When they were fifteen, he saw her face when they called the girl tribute, and he understood the seventeen-year-old was her sister… She had made it eleven days before being taken down by the boy from five. The next two years' Reapings when the camera would find her, he could feel her sister's loss on her face.

But now came their last Reaping… they were eighteen. If their names weren't called, then they wouldn't be called ever… He would also probably never see her again, but if she was alive, then that was alright, it would have to be, only… As he stood there that day, half-listening to their Capitol escort, a woman named Emma Pillsbury, he had this feeling at the pit of his stomach. He could have just been worried, for himself, for her, but… no, he could feel it… over there in District 10, she was being picked. Her name would come out of that ball and it would be announced… he didn't even know her name. All those years though, seeing her for just seconds each time, he'd… Had he fallen in love, he didn't know, he'd never felt this before.

And then he was hearing himself volunteer.

Once he had been heard, there was no going back, they had ushered him up on that stage, next to the girl who had been selected. He knew her from school, Brittany, if he remembered right. He had said his goodbyes with his family, boarded the train with Brittany, Emma, and their mentor. Sue Sylvester was a victor in her time, at age fourteen. She had been on that stage as mentor many times since, though Sam had never spoken to her.

He had been on autopilot since the words "I volunteer" had left his lips, and it was only as they sat there and watched the recap that he came back to himself. What was he expecting? What did he even want to happen? If she wasn't the girl picked in ten, then she was safe, but he was still arena bound. But if his instincts were right, if she was picked, then she would be in that arena, too… and only one of them would make it home.

Her name is Sugar Motta. She was the girl tribute from District 10.

He had gone to lie down on his bed, deciding that he would have to make a choice. If he didn't go in there knowing what he planned to do, then he wouldn't stand a chance. Why had he volunteered? He had known it, had felt like she would get picked, so in volunteering then his aim was clear: he wanted her to live. That would mean Brittany had to die… he wouldn't do it himself, he couldn't, but if it came down to it, then what?

More than that, it would mean that he had to die, too. To say the thought didn't terrify him even a little would have been a lie, but there was no way around it. If she was going to go home, then he wasn't. There could only be one… so he'd lay his life down for her.

When they had reached the Capitol, everything had gone by like it was happening to someone else. He met his stylist, a lanky silent type by the name of Kurt. He was young, but where he lacked in words, his eyes did the talking. He observed Sam like blank canvas he was about to bring to life. That was all fine, he had to get through it. Soon they would be gathering in their costumes for the parade.

That was the first time he saw her in person, standing there while her stylist fixed her costume. He was so taken aback that he almost tripped and ripped his costume, which would have gotten him an earful from Kurt. She didn't see him that day.

Training had gone by. He was strong, that wasn't a problem, but he wasn't exactly skilled in anything of violence, killing… That was the part he needed to somehow accept… easier said than done. There were those here who would kill you without any remorse, but he wasn't there. He took all the pointers he could and before long he was waiting for his private session. He had scored an eight. Sugar had scored a seven.

His interview had probably not helped his case. He was so concerned in not letting anything out about his plans, his motivations, that he sounded just lost. What was worse was that damn Caesar seemed to know exactly where to dig, and Sam just tried not to fall in.

Finally, the time had come, and he was made to put on the clothes he would wear into the arena. He had his last words with Kurt – they were few, and his last words with Sue. She gave him advice, but he kept telling himself those words would only work so long, until he let his guard down to let what needed to happen happen… his death for her survival. They were all carried away, and then there they all were, twenty-four of them waiting for the sound that would tell them to go… run, hide, fight, kill…

The field had been cut in half right in those first few minutes and the hour or so that followed. Sam didn't even know what was happening, he had just run. He could have looked back for her, but from what he knew of that initial moment, his instincts had carried him away. What if she had died already? He felt like a failure for it, but it was done, and he waited. The arena had been cold and dark from the start, like a permanent night, and it was hard to tell how much time had passed. But then he had looked up at the familiar sound of the anthem, and he had seen the faces go by in the sky.

Brittany was still alive, as were Sugar and her partner from ten, a boy named Blaine.

Now that he knew she was alive, he could push away his guilt and try to figure what to do next. He had to find her, and he had to survive until he did.

The days began to accumulate, and with them the number of tributes diminished. Still he hadn't found Sugar. He knew she was still alive, but that was all. Blaine had died on the third day, and the next night he had seen Brittany's face in the permanent night sky. By day seven there were four of them left: himself, Sugar, the girl from two, and the boy from four. He had fared, with mixed results. He had acquired a bottle to carry water, and a knife he had dug out of the girl from six before they had taken her body away. That had helped him get a hold of food better than he had gotten so far, which was just as well, because he was fading by the day. He had not seen the shadow of a single parachute. It wouldn't be long now that this would end. They'd want to wash them out to fight until there was only one left.

He was following a path he had come to know in these last few days when he heard the cannon. With the dark sky still pressing on them he was able to see the victim had been the boy from four. It occurred to him he would have been near him when he saw the body lifted from across the stretch he was on. Even from there Sam could see he had died from someone burying an axe in him… which meant he wasn't alone…

He turned just in time to see the girl from two coming for him. He heard her name in his mind, recalling it from before… Santana, she was called, and he knew what he'd have to do. She was strong, too, of course she would be, being from District 2. Somehow he would have to find a way to best her. But then he saw she was limping.

"Did he do that to you? Before you killed him?" he called after her, which only made her come faster. He had his knife tucked in his boot, but he didn't want to reach for it too soon. She still had weapons, too, he could see them, and they were covered in blood already… whose, that was left to be seen. He couldn't let her reach him. With that leg of hers, if he kept her running, then maybe he could have her fall and then… he didn't know yet. So he ran, and she followed, and it dawned on him, when he looked back, that her leg was fine: she had faked it. Was she trying to tire him out instead, think she wasn't as big of a threat? She was reaching for a knife now, so he had to think so. He reached in his book for his own, but as he kept running, he couldn't do both, and as soon as his fingers grasped the hilt and pulled, he tumbled, landing on his back just as she lunged…

She fell on him, and everything stopped. She was looking at him, and her face told him something was wrong. She was trying to hang on, but then she collapsed against him. The cannon fired as he pushed her off and rolled on to her back – his knife was buried in her stomach. He was out of breath, startled into realizing he had killed her, and he scrambled to get up. He started to reach for the knife, but then he remembered…

It was just him and Sugar now: time to do what he'd…

His breath caught, and he wasn't sure what had happened until he looked down and saw the spearhead jutting out of his chest after it had come through his back. He fell to his knees, then his side, as he heard the leaves crackle under someone's feet… Sugar.

She came into view, looking like it must have taken a lot for her to aim straight, judging by how much she was shaking. For the first time he got to look her in the eye, knowing she was seeing him, too. Was she making sure he was dying, that she didn't have to strike again? He could save her the trouble – he knew he was fading away.

He wouldn't last much longer, so if he was going to say something, now would be the time… He could tell her how he knew he'd loved her for so long now, how he had known somehow she would get chosen and how he had volunteered just so this would happen, so she would live, he could have said all that. Instead the one and only word that could leave his lips before he stopped breathing was the one he'd wanted to tell her for six years… "Hi."

X

He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a few tears, definitely from Sugar. She just sat there with her hands poised like she was about to clap, and at one point he thought he heard her do it. He was pretty sure Kurt was doing the same at his side; he was familiar with the sound of it, when he wouldn't want Blaine to know a movie – or commercial – had him crying.

"Alright, well…" Rachel cleared her throat – had he gotten her, too? "That… that leaves two now, Quinn, Santana…" she looked to see if Mr. Schue was coming back yet, but it looked as though they might finish the round after all. The two remaining girls shared a look.

"I can wait, if you…" Quinn started.

"No, please, go ahead… I'll take the closing slot," Santana insisted.

"I guess you'll want to change something in mine, too?" Quinn gave a bit of a glare.

"I don't see why not," Santana shrugged. "What's yours about?" she opened the floor to her.

"Fine… My story is kind of a noir type of thing," she nodded, and she could tell this went over a few of their heads, even if she would take a few liberties with it, considering the circumstances.

"I think I have my challenge," Santana smiled.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)


	13. A Dame Walked In

___IT'S_******DAY 1000!**_  
__So here we are then, four digits… I'm as shocked as you are ;) Shocked and giddy :D Anyhoo I just wanted to say real quick, if you're out there, and you read my stories, either every day, or every other day, here and there, whatever, if you read my stories, I want to say thanks :D In a little over three months it will have been three years, so let's go! :D (If you want to say hi, the review box is right there ;))_

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_**This is a triple shift day.** There will be two more uploads today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 11 and Step Forty, Recognize a Willing Ear._

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**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**13. A Dame Walked In**

The way Santana looked at her, she could practically see the wheels spinning in her head. "Let me guess, you got a detective, on the cynical side, and then your femme fatale, all that?" she asked, and Quinn just nodded. "Who do you have for those?"

"Well…" Quinn sat up. "Puck," she first pointed, and he looked pleased. "And I don't know, I thought New York, so I thought Rachel," she went on, again pleasing her choice of 'actor.' Santana smiled.

"Good, alright, great, just one little substitution."

"You want me to be the femme fatale?" Quinn guessed.

"No, not at all. I want you to be the detective." The others looked up, curious. "Nothing else changes, but Puckerman's out, and you're stepping in." Quinn considered this. Santana just loved to mess with her like this.

"Alright then."

X

_Quinn's story_

It was dark, and in the distance the city still slept, but here… Here things just might get very loud if this kept up. It had begun only five days ago.

Detective Fabray was a private investigator. Her office was frequented by many, of different stations and different means but always with the story, and that was the part she liked. It wasn't for entertainment; she wasn't the type, but then there were the cases, and those she liked. She was known to do what was needed, and it didn't matter what it was that was needed, it really didn't, not to her. At the same time, the story told her if she would be wasting her time or not.

But one day, he came. Finn Hudson. They had grown up together the two of them, though in later years they had lost touch. In her line of work though she knew full well what he had been up to. He was a grifter, not the best, but enough that they were aware of him. The detective had a reputation, too, on both sides, so someone like Finn Hudson would come to her.

"Hey, Fabray, remember me?" he had spoken as he stood at her door, pulling a cap off his head. She stood at the window and she turned her head at the sound of his voice.

"Yeah, I remember you. What do you want?" she asked coolly.

"I need your help, Fabray, they've taken my girl…"

"Who's they?" The man bowed his head. "Got yourself in a heap of trouble again, didn't you?"

"It wasn't supposed to go that way!" he sounded desperate. "They double crossed me, and then they took her. If I don't find a way to get her back, they'll kill her."

"So just give them their money," she wasn't going to just solve his problems for him.

"I didn't take anything from them, they took something from me!"

"Sorry, Hudson, you brought this on yourself." Her old friend looked at her before leaving. The detective just looked back out the window, saw him scurry off.

When she hadn't heard from him in two days, she figured that was the end of it. But then she got the call. He was dead, gunned down in a restaurant. Sitting in her office, she had considered this for some time before deciding: she would look into the case. She couldn't do a thing for him, and she didn't feel remorse for it, but if what he said was true, then she just might be able to save the girl.

It didn't take her long to track down the people Finn had worked for, the ones who would have this girl. She knew their leader, Chang, they called him. She was accosted by his lackeys/bodyguards, Puckerman and Evans, who took her to their boss, in his restaurant, just down the street from where Hudson was murdered. He was in the middle of eating, while his girl Tina sat nearby, watching the trio enter. "Quinn Fabray, to what do I owe the honor?"

"Finn Hudson," she told him.

"Heard what happened to him, such a shame."

"I'm sure," she wasn't impressed." He came to me two days ago. Said you took his girl."

"Is that right?" Chang asked, looking around the dining room. "I don't see her… Shame, pretty girl." The detective took a few steps forward, which prompted the two goons to reach for their weapons, but Chang called them off. She came right up to the table, putting her hands down on the surface to lean in and stare him in the eye. He kept his cool, but he could have been doing anything and she would still have been able to tell: he had nothing to do with it.

Something about this was starting to feel fishy to her, and it stank… So she turned her focus on this missing girl. Rachel, her name was. When her picture reached the detective's desk, oh… She was trouble alright, the kind that anyone with an affinity for a lady's charm could appreciate, the kind of trouble you came back for and asked for more. And now the trouble had snaked the detective. She need not worry, she would be found.

The detective had not left one stone unturned. She let herself into her life until she came to realize exactly what it was that had happened to her, and when that was the case, then finding her became a breeze.

She returned to the murder scene restaurant, a few nights later, going to the apartments upstairs. She knocked on each door until the very last one, where the door was unlocked. She let herself in, looked around. A woman stayed here, without a doubt, a woman who liked her fancy clothing, her perfume, and the detective knew just what woman that was, even before she walked in from the adjacent room, in a dress cut just right.

"Miss Berry…" she spoke, as the woman approached.

"Detective, well it seems you've found me," she sat on the edge of the bed, poised.

"And not in nearly as much distress as your man would have made it sound." She didn't respond. "But you and I both know you were never in danger, were you?" she stood observing her, all smooth legs and smooth smile.

"I just wanted to get away from him, you understand? Such a clingy boy… If I was taken, then I could get him to forget me. But then he had to go and look for me, through you."

"Is that why you killed him?" the detective asked, and she stood, sidling up to her.

"He got too close."

"From what I see here, I've gotten much closer," she looked her in the eye. Rachel, that smile… Damn that smile. She could have been playing her, but this wasn't what the detective saw.

"Are you going to arrest me?" she asked, a breath away.

"I'm no cop, but I will deliver you to them if it's where you belong." The woman looked hurt. "That way I will always know where to find you," she went on, and the woman understood.

"Don't leave me lonely now."

"I assure you I won't."

X

For once, it took Rachel time to remember herself and her hosting duties, and Mercedes at her side had to nudge her until she blinked, which had amused the hell out of a handful of them, while Quinn turned a semi-glare on to her challenger, who just sat there, pleased as punch.

"Well looks like it's all down to you now, Santana," she told her.

"Yes, it is," Santana nodded.

"I think that deserves a challenge."

"I give the challenges here," Santana told her. "Besides, you don't mess with what doesn't need messing with. Rachel, should I get started?"

Rachel just waved her along, still looking for her brain.

"Good, excellent, well it so happens my story goes a little hand in hand with yours, Quinn. Just a little."

TO BE CONCLUDED (TOMORROW)


	14. Devil In Red

_**This is a double shift day.** There will be one more upload today: This Little Light of Mine, chapter 14._

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**"Let Me Tell You A Story"**

**14. Devil In Red**

_A/N: As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, I would be more than interested in taking some of these_  
_stories that are told here in a small format and expand them in full out chapter stories, so I'd like to know_  
_which of these stories you would like to see get turned into chapter stories!_

Santana wouldn't have told a story like this a year ago, or months ago, and even then it was still among the Glee Club… although now… But that was why she wanted to tell it, and as much as she'd had wanted to tell it, and as much fun as she'd had messing with the last few to pass, challenging them, she didn't want that for this. She wasn't going to tell them all that, but if they were good enough they would figure it out on their own.

"So what is your story?" Quinn asked.

"It's the story of a lounge singer. A very popular lounge singer but maybe with something missing in her life, maybe… someone…" Brittany perked up at this, which made Santana smile. "People would come from all over just to hear her, to see her, to be just near enough to touch, and she knew that, used it as a tool. That could only go so far…"

X

_Santana's story_

She always wore red. It was her thing, her signature. So they called her the devil in red, tempting men to forget their wives just for a night. She never took them up on it, but they didn't know that, so… they tried. It was a lucrative game for her.

When Santana Lopez took the stage, all eyes were on her, but that did not go both ways. She would look at people in the audience, sometimes direct a smile at a desperate-looking man or another, but there was a difference between looking at someone and catching someone's eye. That was what happened that night.

The girl sat at one of the tables so tight in the pack that it would have been impossible to catch her, but then she did stand out. Her blonde hair was bright even in the dimmed light, pulled back neatly, and Santana knew if all the pins were taken out it would cascade down even brighter. She was dressed all in white as well, which added to her brightness, and with how the dress hugged her, Santana could imagine well what it covered. She was beautiful, stunning, and seeing her had done something to the singer few if any could say to have achieved. She had destabilized her. Luckily the band had kicked up just at the right moment so no one even noticed. And after that Santana was right back on top of her game. If anything, she gave her best performance ever.

When it was done, she had made her rounds, stopping to talk briefly with some of her regulars, Mr. Hudson, Mr. Puckerman, Mr. Evans, and Mr. Abrams. All the while she kept an eye out to make sure the angel at table eight was still there. She was, just quietly sitting there, drinking and… writing? Once she had finished with Abrams, she had moved up to the table. "Are you some sort of reporter?" she asked, and the girl startled, almost spilling her drink on her notebook.

"No, I… No, I'm not a reporter." Santana smiled, indicating the empty chair at her side. "Sure, please," she nodded.

"Tell the truth, the dress is not yours, is it?" She blinked.

"I didn't steal it, I borrowed it from my aunt."

"You've never been in a place like this before, have you?" she also guessed. The girl shook her head. "I can tell. Look, relax, alright? And if I may, you did a great job. You look the part." The girl looked hopeful. "What's your name?"

"Brittany," she almost bowed. "Brittany S. Pierce, Miss Lopez."

"Please, call me Santana," she insisted, and the blonde looked surprised. "What do you have there?" Santana pointed to the notebook. Brittany looked down, fingers touching the page.

"Just… things I write, ideas," she shrugged. "Stories…"

"May I?" Santana held her hand out, and the girl blushed. "Nothing to be scared of," she insisted. Brittany looked like she wanted to say something else, but finally she handed the book over. Santana began to leaf through it. The thin little thing was covered, page to page, in a surprisingly neat handwriting. The words went on and on, though they would be interrupted by dates – like today's date. Underneath it she found the last addition, and there was no mistaking the words were arranged in a description of the devil in red… She found that same feeling reading them as she did seeing Brittany in the audience, because that was what they were. The words were Brittany, and Brittany was the words… and they were beautiful. She looked back to the girl, speechless as she was.

After that night, the routine set in, not the kind where everything was the same, but only the steps to get there. The devil took the stage, the men clamored, she winked, she smiled, but if they expected the real thing, then they were out of luck, because those were reserved for the angel at table eight. Brittany returned every night, first in more borrowed dresses, then in gifts from Santana herself. She had never performed so well, and the club's manager, Figgins, couldn't have been more pleased. It didn't take him all that long to understand what was really happening though… He saw the whole romance unfold under his roof.

It began small and innocent, like a good friendship. Santana would sing her set, make her rounds, but it was becoming the means to an end, and that was to get to table eight and talk to Brittany. The shy girl grew more confident by virtue of spending time with the singer, so much that it had been her who had invited Santana to come to her house and not the other way around. If the devil didn't smile just a little brighter that next night, then everyone was blind.

With their relationship growing though, Santana could sense Brittany growing restless when she would see her make her rounds before getting to her table. It was so much so that one night Santana made a decision. Figgins had figured her out, somehow, she didn't know, but either way, that wouldn't stop her. She sang out her set, but on the last song, she did something she had never done.

She sang her way off the stage, snaking through the audience, passing every last one of her regulars, following the path that would take her to table eight, to look into blue eyes that belonged to her and, with the last words of her song she held out her hand to Brittany, inciting her to get up before she could kiss her, softly, longingly, lovingly, publicly.

She had shattered the illusion of countless patrons, costing Figgins so much he had been 'forced' to let her go. She didn't mind. She was free, and she had all she could ever want. So when Figgins had lost his job – the club had crashed and burned really without her – she didn't blink an eye.

A year had passed, a year of perfect bliss with her angel, the day she got a call from the new manager down at the club. This man Schuester wanted to rebuild the act, with her as the 'rightful headliner.' But she looked back, to the girl with the smile, stripped of the costume she would put on just to come see her every night, and her angel had seemed to burst wings. She was herself, less polished and more beautiful for it. Santana had shed the guise of the devil as well, and she felt lighter than ever.

So with 'great apology' she declined Schuester's offer. She still had her passion for music, but she'd find another way.

X

She was oddly peaceful as she finished her story, and she had to snap out of it, remembering the others sitting there and watching her. She could feel Brittany's hand at the small of her back.

Before they could say a thing, Will arrived and announced the bus was good to go. They looked to one another, amused to know they had managed to get through everyone just in the time they had. When Will asked what they had done to keep themselves busy, they played innocent.

Rachel was pleased to see, as they journeyed back to Lima, how the rest of them would be talking about one another's stories. Some still had bones to pick with others about what they'd done to their namesake characters, while others praised them for it. The time had passed practically unseen, and that had been her intention.

She thought about them getting to do this again sometime, but then it might be hard, so close to graduation. Soon most of them wouldn't be there anymore. It was sad to think of it for a moment, but at the same time she was alright with it. Maybe they would take up the practice again even after she was gone, like some sort of legacy… She could do with that. And she'd had fun, too, so much… Good memories like this would always be cherished, especially now.

THE END


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